virus: [Fwd: Church of Virus]

Since David posted my original post here, I think it's fair to post my reply to his reply.

Paul-Andre Panon wrote:

> David McFadzean wrote:
>
>> The CoV has a wiki and we are using the churchofvirus.org domain now instead of lucifer.com.
>
>
> OK. I'm afraid that I have yet to find it. Even the BBS itself is not obvious since it's not part of the menu on the home page but is only set somewhat apart from the other menu links on secondary pages. The abbreviation 'BBS' also is probably only really well known to a very narrow segment of the population exposed to computing in the 1980's and early 1990's. Perhaps that's intentional, but it seems to me somewhat counterproductive, since it limits the communication and exposure of the CoV's memeplex. Forum seems to be a more commonly accepted term in the (much larger) web community.
>
>> People that are offended by "lucifer" wouldn't care about a serious religion anyway.
>
>
> I'm afraid I tend to disagree. To a certain extent, the advertising portion of marketing is an early form of memetic engineering. Advertising doesn't usually go out of its way to associate itself with negative images in its potential market. And yet it appears that's exactly what you're doing with use of the biohazard symbol, and the words virus and lucifer (which have negative connotations in well-educated populations and people brought up in a Judeo-Christian religion).
>
> Or to put it another way, while the presentation of the web site is visually very slick and impressive, it uses symbols which are likely to trigger immuno-memetic reactions in a large segment of the population. This is a two-edged sword. It may prevent "mainstream" religions from taking CoV seriously at first and limit interference in its early memetic evolution from people less capable of the abstract thinking required. However, I fear that in the long run it will severely limit its ability to spread and will probably facilitate active countermeasures by the more extreme organized religions. I fear this because, at a time where the destructive power available to an individual is exponentially increasing, the world really needs a religion that encourages and helps people to function at level 3 of consciousness, whereas most religions seem to actively discourage it in the layety.
>
> The power of a religion is in its ability to convince individuals to engage in behaviour that is beneficial to the group, since it allows the group to prosper and the religious memeplex to spread. For a large portion of human history that spread has been through physical coercion (i.e. crusades) against competing memeplexes as much as through memetic infection. I think it's why a lot of religions encourage physical reproduction, the larger body count helps foster a perception of success, aids survival against random natural disasters, but is also useful when memetic conflict degenerates into physical conflict.
>
> Modern society can no longer afford to have religious memes that support physical conflict because we've become far too effective at physical conflict, and because the world is reaching the limits of what it can comfortably support population-wise. But for a new religion (which eschews excessive reproduction and violence as a viable form of conflict) to supplant existing religions, it must be much more effective at memetic infection and defense. I think it can be done, but I see a certain arrogance in the CoV's approach, and in your one line comment above, that discourage me from thinking the CoV can fill that role. While self-confidence can foster an image of success and encourage memetic adoption, it's a fine line between self-confidence and an arrogance which has a negative effect on memetic adoption. I feel that some aspects of the CoV approach cross that line.
>
>
> Regarding the senseless sins, while I agree Dogmatism, Apathy, and Hypocrisy make very good additions to the Christian 7 deadly sins, Hypocrisy seem to be the only truly original one. Apathy seems to be one facet of Sloth; most people seem to refuse to care as a defense mechanism for avoiding work. For that matter, Dogmatism seems to be a facet of Pride, through an unwillingness to admit one could be wrong/imperfect. The health problems caused by obesity in a majority of the U.S.A (and world) population, as well as the resourcing problems caused by a culture of conspicuous consumption (i.e. SUVs), lead me to conclude that Gluttony hasn't lost any relevance to the modern era. The consumption of drugs, cases like Enron, WorldCom, and companies where CEO incomes are >400 times the median employee income would argue that Lust and Greed are also still relevant.
>
> I think the identification of the seven deadly sins is a fairly effective attempt to contain the self-destructive potential of some of the negative side effects of genetic and memetic selfishness. I don't think human nature has changed significantly in the last 2000 years to lessen their relevance to present-day humans. I'm not sure whether that would even change in a transhuman world since such a world would still be subject to pressures from memetic evolution; but no matter, we are not there yet.
>
>> I would be interested in your ideas, but you seem pretty offensive to me so far.
>
>
> I apologize for coming across that way and I can understand your reaction. To a certain extent, I think your sentence above is exactly the kind of reaction the CoV website triggered in me. I hope this lengthier reply helps communicate why. I also hope I have helped you realize that such a reaction is counter-productive and that attempting to avoid such a reaction is worthwhile.
>
> I look forward to investigating the CoV discussion groups (now that I've found them) and would appreciate it if you could provide me with the URL for the wiki portion of the site you mentioned above.
>
>> D
>
>
> Paul-Andre Panon

To further address Jake's reply:

Jake wrote:
>Part of our target audiences, is in fact people with some personal gripe
>about religion. So quite to the contrary I assure you that the use of
>stigma and satire work very well for recruitment purposes, we have some
>time and experience on this.
I concede your point, however I believe that you are trading more powerful recruitment from one segment for a significantly reduced effectiveness in reaching more neutral parties. You also provide more rhetorical ammunition for the opposition during the inevitable time that you will come into direct conflict with the more mainstream religions. I believe this is probably counter-productive to your goals (it certainly is to mine).

>we are pancritical, so satire of religion,
>especially our own, has some pages in that book too.
My concern regarding that aspect is that a dismissive attitude of religion encourages forgetting the many positive influences of religions on civilization by becoming overly focused on the negative aspects. I would like to see an annotated survey of the major tenets of the major religions, identifying the positive and negative effects on civilization and individuals of each of those tenets, as the beginning of a re-engineering to consiously maintain the positive aspects while minimizing the negative influences. As an example, see my comment regarding the Christian 7 deadly sins. It appears to me that the atheist contingent in the CoV is far too ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

>As far as the "good book" goes, don't worry about that. Walter Watts and I
>have that under control. Our quills fly over the pages every night by
>candle light. But that's top secret stuff! so don't expect to see the
>product on mere inquiry. These things require more personal investment
>than that.
Ah, the priesthood is already asserting control as the intellectual elite? On the one hand, I can appreciate that you may not choose to publish early drafts of what you are working on and be criticized on that by every Tom, Dick, & Harriet.

While I admittedly have only scratched the surface of the BBS archives, I haven't seen any sign of the structured analysis and categorization of the memetic impact of the tenets existing religions. I don't think a BBS format is appropriate for that which is why I suggested a wiki (perhaps augmented by a BBS for discussing changes) in my initial post. I would feel a lot more comfortable about a de-novo attempt at creating a religion if it didn't have such an apparent flavour of ignoring precedents and their lessons as much as possible.

> In the meantime, I might suggest acquainting yourself more with
>the template for that book, the DNA so-to-speak, the many interactions that
>have occurred and are largely documented in the various CoV archives. Or
>better yet have one yourself.
Granted. I'm working on that.

>First and foremost a church is about community. Ideally a community of people
>with a common vision, but you have to have the community of people first.
>I have learned at least one simple thing from CoV; people are more important
>than ideas.
Well, that's the whole point of the church isn't it?

Susan Blackmore's interpretation of memetics (based on Dawkin's selfish gene) is that the meme is selfish and cares not for the medium of transmission. This is the fundamental reason while life isn't fair and justice only exists where we create it or impose it. The existence of the CoV appears to be an attempt to take control of the memes by designing a successful memeplex that will work in our favour.

While it's clearly far too soon to expect this, the end goal of the the CoV has to be the development of local chapters with face to face meetings. While a virtual community is better than none, there is a fundamental human need to feel direct social contact that cannot be satisfied through mere virtual communication. Such social contact reinforces feelings of belonging to a group which are being tapped into by the existing religions. To deny such a fundamental part of human nature would doom the CoV (or any comparable effort) to obscurity as much as it ensured communism's failure.